Serious discussion. Should Ron keep starting?

[RedChucken123]

With all the hype he's gotten with the watchlists and all, it's probably him trying to live up to it. Who knows, maybe he was even trying to go pro at the end of this year. Pike also might be keeping him in the starting lineup cuz it'd be news to bench a watchlist nominee. I think he needs to get benched just to give a gut check that it's not all about him. Forget about winning the Wooden Award because the way he's been playing, it's been rough.

He can get his minutes, but you start those that are performing. Mathis and Young have experienced the benching. It's time to maybe switch one of them back in and put Ron on the bench.

 

[JonathanAlan]

unfortunately there is no one else...Pike didnt recruit a 4 so Harper has to play major minutes. He needs to get his *** in gear. Its not about shooting, its about all the other things

Agreed , Harper has to play. During the first few games of his freshman year he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. But then he made a few and his game took off. I'd be happy with Harper if he just concentrated on defense and rebounding and let his offense come to him. What I don't like is when he lets his poor shooting impact other parts of his game, like it did last night. He needs to bang the boards and play tough defense.

 

[REDRICH65]

RHJ needs to lose 20lbs. He looks like a soft slow linebacker. Should play BB at 220 lbs

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

This is a silly thread. We don’t have a better choice to start at his position. Clearly he should continue to start and I’m not even sure his minutes need to be cut (who should get them)? The issue is we have to stop trying to run our offense through him in games where it’s clear it’s not working. This was especially true once our bigs were in foul trouble and he became the only threat for Iowa to focus on in the post.

Saying we can’t shoot is an exaggeration. We don’t need to run offense through RHJ to win. The 3s weren’t falling yesterday but this isn’t RU from 4 years ago where the whole offense has to be pounding the paint and offensive glass otherwise we can’t score. We have guards in the regular rotation that hit from deep at 43.5%, 38.2%, and 34.5%. We are streaky but not “terrible” from long range. And from mid-range we aren’t just streaky, we’re actually pretty good. Geo and Caleb both shoot at really solid percentages on the mid-range jumpers. And both of them can create their own space when they get the ball there. Why are those 2 hoisting 3s at the end of expiring shot clocks. Get open inside the arc. After two RHJ early forces, we needed to be prepared to move on. RHJ can help in other ways if his shot isn’t there.